Subjects

Notes

Abstract:

Photographs by Aida García Alonso that were intended to be published in the second edition of Manuela la Mexicana (Published: La Habana, Casa de las Américas, 1968. 444 p. illus. 19 cm.). The photos were not allowed to be included.

Acquisition:

From private collection.

Biographical:

Aida García Alonso was Cuban. She attended Mexico's National School of Anthropology and History (ENAH) where she got a degree in cultural anthropology. After the Cuban Revolution, García Alonso returned to Cuba. There she started to do ethnographic research in Las Yaguas, a series of slums in Havana. Her work coincided with the Cuban government's project of relocating Las Yaguas' dwellers to new houses built by the new regime. The result of her fieldwork was the book Manuela la Mexicana published by Casa de las Americas in 1968. In the 1970s, García Alonso was preparing a second edition. For this newer edition she prepared photographs and statistics on the people who used to live in Las Yaguas and was relocated. Fidel Castro's government censored the work, and García Alonso went into exile to Mexico in 1980, where she died in 2009. This digital collection includes the photographs, captions, and statistics that were to be included in the second edition of Manuela la Mexicana.